Matthew 8:14-17
“Jesus was Homeless?”
By: Rev. Ken Sauer, Pastor Of East Ridge United Methodist Church, Chattanooga, TN www.eastridgeumc.com
If we were to compare Mark’s version of this event with Matthew’s, we would see that this happened in Capernaum, on the Sabbath, after Jesus had worshipped in the synagogue.
When Jesus was in Capernaum, His headquarters were in Peter’s house.
And one reason for this is that, it seems, Jesus had no home of His own.
Just a few verses down Jesus declares, “Foxes have holes and birds of the air have nests, but the Son of Man has no place to lay his head.”
So, while in Capernaum Jesus lived in Peter’s house.
Archaeologists have excavated a building in Capernaum that was originally constructed in the First Century—during the time of Jesus.
Later in the same century this house was used as a meeting place for Christians.
Fourth and fifth century church buildings incorporated the house and called it “Peter’s house” which may very well be historically accurate.
So, Peter was married, and Christian tradition has it that later on Peter’s wife was Peter’s helper in the work of the Gospel.
Clement of Alexandria tells us that Peter and his wife were martyred together.
In our Gospel Lesson for this evening, Peter’s wife’s mother was sick with a fever until Jesus came into the house and touched her hand.
Immediately after this, “the fever left her, and she got up and began to wait on him.”
She clearly thought of herself as “saved to serve.”
She used the gift of her restored health to serve Jesus.
And that is the way we should use every gift of God.
God comes into our lives, into our hearts and transforms us for service.
To be healed by God is the most powerful thing.
To be forgiven and set free is the greatest miracle of all.
And it causes a great change in us.
We begin to look for ways to serve Christ: the One Who loves us and saves us…
…and in looking, we find that it is in serving other human beings that we serve Christ!!!
Isn’t it awesome how God is so in love with us, that God is served when we are served…
…God is loved when we are loved…
…God is clothed when we are clothed…
…God is fed when we are fed…
…and conversely, God is thirsty, cold, in prison and homeless when we are.
We are not alone, God is much closer to each of us than we could ever imagine!!!
So, how should that play out in the way we see and treat others?
God doesn’t play favorites.
God is in love with you, but God is just as in love with you as God is in love with the person sitting next to you and behind or in front of you.
God is just as in love with you as God is in love with the person holding the “will work for food” sign at the interstate exit ramp.
God is just as in love with you as God is in love with the person who suffers because she has been abused by her father, uncle or husband.
God is just as in love with you as God is in love with the most outcaste, the most marginalized, the most cut-off and hated persons in human society.
God is just as close to them as God is close to you!!!
And so, the way we treat others is the way we treat God—literally!!!
How are we doing on that level?
In our Gospel lesson from this morning, Jesus tells us, “Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you.”
“If you just love those who love you, what good is that?”
A friend of mine recently confessed that he has trouble with “stinky people.”
People who literally “stink.”
He said that is a problem that he is asking God to work on in his life.
Who or what kind of people do you, do I have trouble loving and serving?
How can we overcome our prejudice, how can we learn to see Jesus in everyone we meet?
We can’t do it alone, can we?
We must be aware of where we fall short, and thus ask God to convert the corners of our lives which remain unconverted!
We must ask God to help us to love those whom we have a hard time loving.
There is an element missing in most of our lives.
Sometimes we are very aware of this.
And so we groan with the world and wonder why everything aches so profoundly, why we feel so far from who we know we could be, from the Garden of Eden, from God.
And perhaps we suspect that the missing element may have something to do with how we treat our neighbors, and thus how we treat our relationship with God.
We don’t like disruptions, do we?
Has anyone pulled out in traffic right in front of you recently?
Did the worker at the drive-through forget to include ketchup?
Is our favorite shortcut barricaded by a “roadwork” sign, forcing us to detour?
We live in a disruption-avoidance culture.
Whole industries exist to make life less discombobulated.
Is grocery shopping too much of a hassle?
Order online and we’ll have your order to your house in a jiffy.
Too busy to get your car washed?
We’ll come to the office, and if you give us your credit card number over the phone, you won’t even know we were there.
What are we doing that is so completely important that we can’t be interrupted?
Look at how Jesus dealt with interruptions and disruptions.
Jesus had come from the synagogue; there He had dealt with and had cured a demon-possessed man.
As Matthew has it, He had healed the centurion’s servant on the way home.
Beyond a doubt Jesus would have been tired.
It would have been for rest that He came to Peter’s house, and yet no sooner was He in it than there was another demand on Him for help and healing.
The demands of human need never come to Jesus as an intolerable nuisance.
Starting in verse 16, we are told that “When evening came, many who were demon-possessed were brought to [Jesus], and he drove out the spirits with a word and healed all the sick.”
The evening is supposed to be a time for quiet when work is finally laid aside.
But at the time when Jesus might have expected to rest, He was surrounded by human need—and selflessly and uncomplainingly and with a divine generosity Jesus met them all.
That scene called to Matthew’s mind the saying from Isaiah “He took up our infirmities and carried our diseases.”
As followers of Christ, how are we doing when it comes to encountering human need?
That’s a tough one, is it not?
But it is a great challenge…
…to learn to love and care for others as Christ loves and cares for us!!!
For in loving and caring for others we are loving and caring for Christ!!!
A woman named Claudia Mair Burney wrote the following meditation:
“Jesus lives next door. He’s an eight year-old girl and her three year-old brother.
The Son of Man looks like those starving Ethiopian children.
He only gets breakfast and lunch at school, when he makes it.
His mama is [addicted to] crack.
Nobody knows where his daddy is.
Jesus is two houses down and has six children.
Now he’s pregnant with the seventh.
How does he expect to feed all those babies on that salary?
The Lord is a crazy man—paranoid schizophrenic.
If he doesn’t take his medication, he walks up and down the street, cussing and spitting on everyone he passes.
He’s homeless.
Nobody knows where his family is—if he’s got one.
Digs out of the trash cans for food.
Somebody ought to get him off the street.
Jesus is nothing but a nuisance.
I’m starting to see the Son of Man everywhere I go.
He’s always crying or begging or looking pitiful.
Why doesn’t he pull himself up by his bootstraps?
Somebody ought to do something about him.
Somebody.”
What are we doing about Him?
What are we doing for Him?
“When Jesus came into Peter’s house, he saw Peter’s mother-in-law lying in bed with a fever.
He touched her hand and the fever left her, and she got up and began to wait on him.”
May it be so for us as well.
Amen.
